vampiresfandomcom-20200214-history
User blog:SwRSSS31585/Versions of Little Red Riding Hood
The stories of “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Little Red Cap”, or “Little Red Hat” are all versions of the same tale. This tale seems to originate about 2,000 years ago somewhere between Europe and the Middle East. The tale of Little Red Riding Hood can specifically be traced back to 10th century of Europe . Interestingly enough, the earliest versions differ from the modern versions in several different ways. One being that the antagonists is not always a wolf in other versions they have been known to be ogres and werewolves. Another is that the ogre or Wolf leaves the grandmother remains to be cannibalized by Little Red Riding Hood. These versions also typically contain a Wolf or Ogre that will ask Little Red to take off her clothes and get into bed with them. The versions that we covered “Little Red Hat” and “Little Red Riding Hood” are two very different versions of the same story originating from two different places, but contain these kind of characteristics. The tale “Little Red Hat” is an Italian/Austrian version that was collected by Christian Schneller and “Little Red Riding Hood” is a French tale collected by Charles Perrault (Ashliman, 2015). In “Little Red Hat”, the young girl named Little Red Hat is on her way to her grandmother’s house with some soup. On her way she meet sna ogre that asks her where she is going. She tells him where, and he says that he’ll come along but he’ll go through the thorns while she goes through the stones. The ogre arrived to the grandmother’s first, he kills and eats the grandmother, then he ties her intestine onto the door in place of the latch string and placed her blood, teeth, and jaws in the kitchen cupboard. When Little Red Hat arrives, the ogre has placed himself in the grandmother's bed. Little Red Hood comes inside and tells her “grandmother” that she is hungry and thirsty. The ogre has Little Red Hood eat and drink parts of her grandmother. Every time that Little Red Hood questions it, the ogre yells "Eat and keep quiet!". So, Little Red Hood does. She then tells her “grandmother” that she is sleepy. The ogre then says "Take off your clothes and get into bed with me!". Little Red Hat got into bed and noticed “something” hairy. The story then continues with Little Red pointing out several physical characteristics of the ogre and the ogre replying with witty reasons as to why. Then Little Red asks: "Grandmother, you have such a big mouth!" and the Ogre replies "That comes from eating children!" and then he swallowed Little Red Hat with one gulp (Ashliman, 2015). The tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” begins with Little Red Riding Hoods mother telling her to take her grandmother some cake and a pot of butter. She goes and comes across a wolf, he immediately wants to eat her up, but is aware of some woodcutters not too far away, so he asks her where she is going. She tells him that she’s going to her grandmothers and where it is. The wolf tells her that he will go see her too and that he will go that way and she’ll go another. The wolf ran as fast as he could to beat Little Red Riding Hood, when he gets there the grandmother asks who it is and he says that he is her grandchild, so the grandmother tells him how to open the door. He enters, jumps on the old woman, and eats her up. He then takes her place in her bed. Little Red Riding Hood comes and knocks the door, the wolf proceeds to act like her grandmother and tells her to come inside the same exact way she had told him to do. She enters and the wolf tell s her to set the cake and pot of butter on the stool and to come get into bed with him. The story continues as: Little Red Riding Hood took off her clothes and got into bed. When she go into the bed she was greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her nightclothes, and then she continues to point out the physical characteristics of the wolf and wolf replied with witty reasons as to why all the way up until Little Red says, "Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!" and the wolf replies with "All the better to eat you up with." and then the wolf jumps and eats her all up (Ashliman, 2015). As you can see, there are stark differences between these versions. In the Italian version the antagonist is an ogre and in the French version the antagonist is a wolf. Although, the two do have many similarities as ogres are hairy, masculine, and are known for eating children in folklore just like wolves are. In the tale “Little Red Hat” there is cannibalism of the grandmother, but there isn't any cannibalism in “Little Red Riding Hood”. In both tales, the antagonist takes the place of the grandmother and tell the young girl to take off her clothes and get into bed with them. Following this part in the story, in each tale Little Red points out the different and weird features of the ogre/wolf, with him replying with a witty reason as to why. Both stories then end with Little Red being eaten. Along with these similarities, these two versions also seem to have a similarity between their meanings . Charles Perrault added what the tales moral is to the end of it, explaining that the story warns young attractive girls to not talk to strangers, especially strangers that are very kind, or else they will be “they may well provide dinner for a wolf”. In short, it is a warning to young girls to be wary of overly friendly men. Likewise, “Little Red Hat” provides a similar warning of not being taken advantage. In this tale, the Ogre could represent a man deceiving a woman and using his dominance against her to get sexual favors from her. This is similar for other versions of Little Red Riding Hood as well, in which they can be seen as tales that serve as warning for young girls. References Ashliman, D. "Little Red Riding Hood and other tales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 333." Little Red Riding Hood. N.p., 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2017. Perrault, Charles. "Little Red Riding Hood." Little Red Riding Hood. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017. Schneller, Christian. "Little Red Hat." Little Red Riding Hood. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017 Category:Blog posts